Pedal-powered lift gives speedy access to treehouse

A man who built a 30-foot high treehouse has invented an ingenious way to
access it using a pedal-powered elevator.

12:03PM BST 09 Sep 2013

After building a 30-foot high cabin, Ethan Schlussler decided he needed to invent an easier way to access it than the tiresome climb up a ladder.

It took the resourceful 22-year-old from from Sandpoint, Idaho a week and several attempts to develop the bicycle-powered ‘elevator’, which now allows him to pedal himself up in under 30 seconds.

Ethan Schlussler

"First, I changed the gear ratio on the bicycle by swapping a large front sprocket to the rear, which was still not quite easy enough to pedal, so I added a pulley into the system to gain a bit more advantage," he told ABC News.

"Once I had the counterweight adjusted, it worked better than I could have hoped."